Science is the “HOW” but religion is the “WHY”

Over in the Huffington Post, writer Kamran Pasha has landed the coveted “I’ve got a book to sell, and so I’ve been invited to write a poorly-argued essay about current events that will allow me to repeatedly plug my book over the course of several thousand words” slot.

Today’s essay is all about how Angels and Demons (38% fresh, “too often wavers between implausible and ridiculous”) is “great storytelling” and a “very human picture of characters who are motivated by faith and committed to struggling with ‘demons,’ both in others and within themselves.”

I am sure that the movie would be entertaining enough to watch on an airplane; nonetheless, I find it hard to believe that a Tom Hanks movie could present a “very human picture” of anything (except maybe for “what it’s like to fall in love with a mermaid” or “how fantasy role-playing games can destroy your life.”

The really exciting part of the essay, of course, is where Pasha takes another brave stab at arguing for the compatibility of science and religion:

A Christian friend of mine once asked how I reconciled the story of Adam and Eve in the Qur’an with the scientific consensus on evolution. I smiled and said to him that I didn’t bother. It’s like comparing apples and musical notes. The scientific theory and the scriptural story serve totally different purposes. Science is about how. Religion is about why.

Of course! HOW vs. WHY! Why didn’t I think of that? Anyone can play this game:

I could continue, but I think you get the point. Science is helpless to provide valuable moral lessons about god’s hirsuteness, telling time, women’s proper place, and supernatural justifications for life’s difficulties. All praise religion! (And buy Pasha’s book about Mohammed and his seven-year-old bride!)